John Barley

If you’re looking for an experience, look no further--New York’s hottest club is Perennial Oath.

After you step through a refurbished barn door to this donut-offering plateless BBQ hot spot, you’ll be greeted by a skeeball machine on which you get one throw to see if you can enter. This place has everything: no chairs or tables, 600 taps, a Russian man screaming profanities, ski bums, and Stockard Channing singing "There Are Worse Things I Could Do." Don’t look for a bartender; there isn’t one. And why are there no bartenders? Because it’s that thing when everyone you know is on the Paleo diet.

This month marks the release of our most recent collaboration, Stefon, which our friends at Perennial Artisan Ales brewed at their shop. Stefon is a dark rye farmhouse ale conditioned with Brettanomyces. Earthy, spicy rye malt is at the front of the nose, followed by subtle stone and tropical fruit, with crackling cocoa flavor on the palate and a slight tartness that will only develop further with age.

Since we opened in May of 2012 the only way you’ve been able to pick up Solemn Oath goods was if you visited our brick-and-mortar location in Naperville. Today that changes.

As we’ve grown, the demand for our apparel, headwear, and miscellaneous items (coming soon) has grown in parallel. Alongside our passion for creating quality beer, the aesthetic presence of our space and the products we create has always been a focus. From our creative partners to the work of our in-house artist Jourdon Gullett, we’ve always strived to construct the best atmosphere possible for you to enjoy the beer that we’re so proud of—and sometimes that is a tee shirt on your back.

We've decided to show the day after Monday, and before Wednesday, some love. Expect crazy things to happen on each and every Tuesday in the future.

As we move forward we will tap something out of the norm, sometimes it may be a rad pin, other times a specially infused beer... and, because you are thinking it, we will break out some barrel-aged stuff sometimes too. Special tappings won't be all. We'll also choose a beer, sometimes two, to do $10 growler fills.

On Thursday, August 28, SOB and Penrose Brewing Company will team up yet again for the second installment of our new event format--The Neighborhood Party.

In case you missed round one in Armitage Awesomeness, our two breweries got together to do two things: celebrate the great venues for beer in one Chicago neighborhood and throw an event that reflects our best experiences hanging out with friends over beers. Craft-supporting establishments and breweries do a killer job of giving you options for single-venue events, but we wanted to pull together an itinerary for you that gives the beer event some legs and a breath of fresh air.

Solemn Oath is expanding.

When our head brewer Tim Marshall and I began working full-time on Solemn Oath in August, 2011, we had no space and no equipment, but a vision and a plan to bring it to life. We would focus exclusively on draft out of the gates and eventually add packaged beer. That allowed us to offer an intimate introduction to our beer at the Solemn Oath taproom and at our favorite bars and restaurants around Chicago, where we think beer is best had and where we like to drink it. As our production increased, we rolled packaged product out in the form of twenty-two ounce bombers, making our beer available to take home for the right occasion and company, apt for sharing alongside beers from our peers whose company-in-beer we enjoy. But before we had even released our first bottle, we began actively working on our next expansion. This will all be done before the end of 2014 and we're ready to announce it.

Tim and I invented spontaneous combustion.

It actually sounds cooler than it is. Really, we were just bored. History was boring. Extremely boring. Who knew? Not these two time-traveling mavericks. Why do you think Paul quit teaching it? You have to be a god-damned illusionist to try and get kids to pay attention to all the boring shit. Yeah, we know, Cromwell, Hammurabi, Tesla, blah blah blah. 332, 1280, 1668, 1776. Yes, there were some interesting people and times in our world history, but they’re only a minuscule part of the vast void of history.

On Thursday, June 26 Solemn Oath and our brothers at Penrose Brewing Company will be debuting a new event format we will regularly pair up for - The Neighborhood Party.

One of Chicago's obvious strengths is it's neighborhood diversity and this night is set to highlight exactly that. Each quarter we will select a different neighborhood or area of Chicagoland to highlight. We are creating an all evening affair with several stops where you can join from beginning to end or hop in anywhere along the way.

We're hitting the ground in 2018 running and a little bit jittery with the Most Important Day of Beverage. Saturday, January 13 will be the release of Most Important Beverage of the Day, Beverage of Champions, and the all-new Beverage of Champions Rock and Rye.

The release party, which is open to all, will go from 11AM to 3PM. At 3PM the party will end and all remaining bottles that need to be picked up can be done so through the Taproom. If you cannot make the celebration we will hold your bottles until close at the brewery on January 20, after which we will put any bottles not yet picked up back on sale and no refund will be given.

This week we embark on the annual sleep-deprived binge we call Chicago Craft Beer Week. It's a time for special tappings, hang sessions with the friends, and a jovial celebration of all things craft beer.

The best way to attack the madness is to embrace the advice your dad has been trying to pound into you since you were little, "Have a goddamned plan." This is our schedule, so be sure to join us for a few things and bring some friends.